Posts Tagged ‘world oil supplies’

In this post I present developments in world crude oil (including condensates) supplies since January 2007 and per July 2017.

In this post the world crude oil (inclusive condensates) supplies is split into three entities, North America [Canada, Mexico and the US], OPEC(13) and other Non OPEC [World – {North America + OPEC(13)}] with a closer look at Brazil.

For OPEC(13) a closer look at developments of number of active oil rigs versus developments in the oil supplies. This is supplemented with developments in the oil supplies versus the number of active oil rigs for some selected OPEC countries.

Looking at figure 07 for OPEC(13) the increase in its supplies as of late 2014/early 2015 followed a period with noticeable growth in oil rigs and likely capacity expansions/modifications of oil process/treatment facilities.
The accompanying increase in OPEC(13) supplies may simply have been rationalized from a pure business desire to recover the investments (CAPEX) from these capacity expansions.

Finally a closer look at developments in petroleum consumption/demand and stock changes for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The OECD has about half of total global petroleum consumption and a major portion of the global petroleum stocks.

“It took a lot of costly oil to bring down the oil price. This is the magic from lots of cheap credit.”

Figure 01: Figure 1: The stacked areas in the chart above shows changes to crude oil supplies split with North America [North America = Canada + Mexico + US], OPEC and other non OPEC [Other non OPEC = World – (OPEC + North America)] with January 2007 as a baseline and per July 2017. Developments in the oil price (Brent spot, black line) are shown against the left axis.

It was the oil companies’ rapid growth in CAPEX leveraged by cheap debt [ref US Light Tight Oil (LTO)] and expectations of a sustained higher oil price that brought about a situation where supplies started to run ahead of consumption/demand that brought the oil price down. During the run up to the oil price collapse, supplies also grew from other non OPEC (ex North America) from developments sanctioned while the oil price was high and expected to remain so.

Following the oil price collapse several of these developments had to take considerable write downs.

This coincided with increased OPEC supplies in what became widely explained as a bid from OPEC for market share.

In this post I present developments in world crude oil (including condensates) supplies since January 2007 and per June 2016. Further a closer look at petroleum demand (consumption and stock changes) developments in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for the same period and what this implies about demand developments in non OECD.

The data used for this analysis comes from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) Monthly Energy Review.

The OECD has about half of total global petroleum consumption.

Since December 2015 OECD total annualized petroleum consumption has grown about 0.2 Mb/d [0.5%].[Primarily led by growth in US gasoline and kerosene consumption, ref also figure 6.]

The OECD petroleum stock building was about 0.4 Mb/d during Jan-16 – Jun-16, which is a decline of about 0.6 Mb/d from the same period in 2015. This implies a 2016YTD net decline in total OECD demand of 0.4 Mb/d.

World crude oil supplies, according to EIA data, have declined 1.3 Mb/d from December-15 to June-16, ref figures 1 and 2.

The above implies that non OECD crude oil consumption/demand has declined about 1 Mb/d since December 2015.
This while the oil price [Brent Spot] averaged about $40/b.

This may now have (mainly) 2 explanations;

The present EIA data for crude oil for the recent months under reports actual world crude oil supply, thus the supply data for 2016 should be expected to be subject to upward revisions in the future.

Consumption/demand in some non OECD regions/countries are in decline and this with an oil price below $50/b.
If this should be the case, then it needs a lot of attention as it may be a vital sign of undertows driving world oil demand.Oil is priced in US$ and US monetary policies (the FED) affect the exchange rate for other countries that in addition have a portion of their debts denominated in US$ thus their oil consumption is also subject to the ebb and flows from exchange rate changes.

Figure 1: The stacked areas in the chart above shows changes to crude oil supplies split with North America [North America = Canada + Mexico + US], OPEC and other non OPEC [Other non OPEC = World – (OPEC + North America)] with January 2007 as a baseline and per June 2016. Developments in the oil price (Brent spot, black line) are shown against the left axis.

It was the oil companies’ rapid growth in debt [ref US Light Tight Oil (LTO)] that brought about a situation where supplies ran ahead of consumption and brought the oil price down.

In this post I present a more detailed look at developments in central banks’ balance sheets, interest rates and the oil price since mid 2006 and as of recently.

Paper and digital money are human inventions. Most people truly believe it is money that powers the society and their lives because they have never had reason to think otherwise. Money does not create energy, but it allows for faster extraction from stocks of energy (like fossil fuels) and influences consumers’ affordability of energy.

It is humans’ ability to use external energy that gives humans leverage over other animals. The financial system in general does not recognize oil for what it is, it treats it like another commodity.
We (the aggregate human hive) moved to use more financial debts as a way of pulling resources for consumption (like oil) forward in time when Limits To Growth (LTG) was written. In recent years global credit/debt creation went exponential. The workings of financial debts (created “ex nihilo”) was not included in LTG and the effects of debts are rarely recognized when Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is estimated and its future trajectory projected.

This post takes a closer look at the question:
• “Could the cumulative effects of the strong growth in oil prices starting back in 2004, which signaled a tighter oil supply/demand balance, upon working their way through the economies, have contributed to forcing the central banks’ to deploy their tools of lower interest rates and growing their balance sheets – measures which have mitigated some of the effects of higher priced oil?”
It is recommended to read this post as an extension to my post “Global Credit growth, Interest Rate and Oil Price – are these related?” where I showed that apparently something fundamentally changed in previous mid decade.

Figure 1: The chart above is a composite of two charts. The bottom chart shows the developments for the total central banks’ assets on the balance sheets and the interest rate for Federal Reserve [Fed], European Central Bank [ECB], Bank of England [BoE] and Bank of Japan [BoJ]. Developments in total central banks’ assets in US$ Trillion are shown by the green line and plotted versus the outer right hand scale. Developments in the interest rate (%) are shown by the dark blue line line and plotted versus the inner right hand scale. On top of the chart and with synchronized time axis is overlaid the development in the oil price (US$/Bbl, Brent spot), red line and plotted versus the left hand scale.

Since the start of the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008 the western central banks (Fed, ECB, BoE and BoJ) have grown their total assets above $10 Trillion and added around $7 Trillion to their balance sheets in the last 7 years.

The overlay with the developments in the oil price on the chart with central banks’ (CBs) balance sheets and interest rate (ref also figure 1), creates the impression that massive CBs liquidity injections and considerable cuts to the interest rate renewed the support for the oil price after it collapsed from its high in the summer of 2008.

The oil price has remained fairly stable since 2011 (around US$110/Bbl) as the western central banks continued to expand their balance sheets at an annual average rate of around US$1 Trillion and kept interest rates low. Then add the expansive credit/debt creation of other big economies, like Brazil and China, during this same period.